---
title: He hearkened with all his ears, and the sorry thing was saying words… — More English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: He hearkened with all his ears, and the sorry thing was saying words all mixed up with sobbing-- Who acts: whimpering, sorry thing. A sentence of «More English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, More English Fairy Tales, part 3, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# More English Fairy Tales, More English Fairy Tales, part 3, sentence 48

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He hearkened with all his ears, and the sorry thing was saying words all mixed up with sobbing--

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**Who acts:** whimpering, sorry thing · **What happens:** hearken, say, mix up · **To what, where:** words · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «More English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, More English Fairy Tales, part 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (whimpering, sorry thing), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Parsed by Mova, not checked by a teacher.** This tree is Mova's own parse (the `en` model, on the CPU, when the site is built); it may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg14241:17:48
# text = He hearkened with all his ears, and the sorry thing was saying words all mixed up with sobbing--
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	hearkened	hearken	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	with	with	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
4	all	all	DET	PDT	PronType=Tot	6	det:predet	_	_
5	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	6	nmod:poss	_	_
6	ears	ear	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
10	sorry	sorry	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	thing	thing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	_
12	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
13	saying	say	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	2	advcl	_	_
14	words	word	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	obj	_	_
15	all	all	ADV	RB	_	16	advmod	_	_
16	mixed	mix	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	ccomp	_	_
17	up	up	ADP	RP	_	16	compound:prt	_	_
18	with	with	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
19	sobbing	sobbing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	--	--	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **hearken** | past | whimpering |  |  |  |  | with whimpering's ears | tree rules |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past · progressive | the sorry thing | words |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **mix up** | past |  |  |  |  |  | with sobbing; all *property* | vn mix-22.1-1-1 «NP V PP.co-patient»: agent=Patient with sobbing=Co-Patient |

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One row per clause the reader finds. «not said here»: a role filled from the clause above. «roles by»: a VerbNet class and frame when one fits the verb, else the reader's rules on the tree.

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**Text:** «More English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Project Gutenberg book 14241 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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